From March 2015 to March 2016, Baroness Scotland served as senior advisor to Ron Wahid, Chairman of Arcanum, a subsidiary of Magellan Investment Holdings, Limited. She stepped down in order to assume the role of Secretary-General of the Commonwealth.[8]

In 2001 she became Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, and was made a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. She was the minister formally responsible for civil justice and the reform of civil law including the comprehensive reform of land registration leading to the Land Registration Act 2002. She was also formally responsible for international affairs at the Lord Chancellor's Department and was appointed by Prime Minister Tony Blair as the UK Alternate Representative to the European Convention[9] and was given primary responsibility for the negotiations in relation to the Charter of Rights which were successfully concluded in 2003. During this period she consolidated the strong relations created with all the applicant countries through the FAHR programme and the member states and was subsequently awarded the Polish Medal for her contribution to the reform and development of Law in Poland.

In 2003 Baroness Scotland was made Minister of State for the Criminal Justice System and Law Reform at the Home Office and deputy to the Home Secretary. She served in that post until 2007 under three Home Secretaries: David Blunkett, Charles Clarke and John Reid. While at the Home Office she was responsible for major reform of the criminal justice system. She created the Office of Criminal Justice Reform[11] which helped to create and support the National Criminal Justice Board and the Local Criminal Justice Board. Having acted as Chair, she then created three Alliances to reduce re-offending (Corporate, Civic and Faith based Alliance) and the Corporate Alliance against Domestic Violence.[12] She created an advisory group on victims and the Criminal Justice Centre, Victims and Witness units.

Baroness Scotland created Inside Justice Week[13] and the Justice Awards. She introduced the Crime and Victims Act which created new offence of familial homicide which was successfully used to prosecute the killers of Baby P who would otherwise have escaped responsibility for his death.

Baroness Scotland continued her responsibility for international affairs at the Home Office and continued to represent the UK in a number of international negotiations such as those relating to extradition.

In 2004 Baroness Scotland was considered to be a possible candidate to become a commissioner of the European Union.

On 28 June 2007 Baroness Scotland was appointed Attorney General by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.[6] She was the first woman to hold the office since its foundation in 1315. As Attorney General she was the Chief legal adviser to: Her Majesty The Queen, Parliament and the Government, Supervisor and Superintendent of the Prosecutorial Authorities (the Crown Prosecution Service, Serious Fraud Office and Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office), Leader of the Bar and had non-statutory oversight of the prosecutors in government departments, the Treasury Solicitors Department and armed services prosecuting authority. She was Guardian of the Rule of Law and Public Interest. She was one of the three Cabinet Ministers responsible for the criminal justice system and had specific responsibility for fraud policy and the National Fraud Authority and chaired the Inter-Ministerial Group responsible for the improvement of the response to fraud and e-crime.

She was instrumental in creating the Quintet[15] that brought together the Attorneys General of the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to consider issues of joint legal and systemic concern. During her time as Attorney General, Baroness Scotland continued to promote pro bono[16] work by lawyers and created an international and Schools Pro Bono Committee which was responsible for co-ordinating pro bono work. She created the Pro Bono Awards and Pro Bono Heroes. She also created an Attorney General's Youth Network.[17]

She was the last Attorney General for England and Wales also to be the Attorney General for Northern Ireland before the devolution of justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and appointment of a separate Attorney General for Northern Ireland. She became instead Advocate General for Northern Ireland, the UK government's chief advisor on Northern Ireland law, for a brief period until Labour left office.

When Labour left government on 11 May 2010, Baroness Scotland became the Shadow Attorney General and was reappointed to that role by Ed Miliband when he appointed his first Shadow Cabinet in October 2010, where she was instrumental in creating Labour's strategy against Rupert Murdoch.[18] She is currently a president of Chatham House.[19]

In December 2014 Baroness Scotland was elected as the Alderman for the ward of Bishopsgate in the City of London, having stood (in accordance with convention in the City) as an independent candidate.[20]

Her candidacy was opposed by Hugh Segal, former Canadian special envoy to the Commonwealth and senator, who wrote in an editorial that she was not qualified for the position be cause she "accepted a well-paying brief from a junta in the Maldives to argue against the Commonwealth’s legitimacy when it and Canada sought the restoration of democracy in that country."[24][25]

Baroness Scotland is the Patron of the Corporate Alliance Against Domestic Violence.[26] She is the joint Patron of Missio,[27] a charity which is the Catholic Church's official support organisation for overseas mission.[28]

Baroness Scotland has been voted Peer of the Year by Channel 4,[30] the House Magazine,[31] Parliamentarian of the Year by the Spectator[32] and the Political Studies Association,[33] and received a number of other awards for her contribution to law reform in the UK and abroad.

During the debate, Scotland's view in 2005 that a higher threshold to establish "probable cause" was required by the UK to extradite from the US than vice versa was contrasted by Clegg to comments which the Prime Minister had made in July 2006, in which he stated that the evidential burdens on the two countries were the same.[38] The NatWest Three were subsequently extradited, and accepted a plea-bargain arrangement under which they pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud in the United States and were sentenced to 37 months imprisonment.

In November 2016 political blogger Guido Fawkes published extracts from leaked documents exposing Scotland's extravagant spending on redecorating her grace and favour apartment in Mayfair, London. Costs included £4,020 for a cupboard, £5,000 for a new vanity unit, wallpaper at a cost of £10,500, £5,000 on refurbishing a safe, and a Trompe-l'œil style door for £4,000.[39]

Scotland denied the claims in a statement posted on the Commonwealth’s website, insisting there had been "no extravagance at all" and suggesting that the spending was agreed by Kamalesh Sharma, the Commonwealth’s secretary-general from 2008 to 2016.[40][41]

In 2009 Scotland employed Lolo Tapui, an illegal immigrant. Tapui had been using a forged passport for the period up to and including December 2008. Scotland began to employ Tapui in January 2009. Tapui was later jailed for eight months for fraud, possessing a false identity stamp, and overstaying her UK visa. At her trial Tapui admitted to having been paid £95,000 by the Daily Mail. She was later deported to native Tonga.[42]

Scotland had earlier been subjected to a penalty of £5,000 for not keeping, as an employer, copies of documents used to check Tapui's immigration status, under rules Scotland helped draft as a Home Office minister. The investigation by the UK Border Agency found that Scotland did not "knowingly" employ an illegal worker. But Scotland, who was Attorney General at the time, was fined for failing to keep copies of those papers, under rules she helped draft as a Home Office minister.[43]